YEREVAN, OCTOBER 15, ARMENPRESS. Joint opinion of the Venice Commission and the Directorate of Human Rights (DHR) of the Directorate General of Human Rights, and rule of law (DGI) of the Council of Europe, on the amendments to the Judicial Code of Armenia and some other laws, adopted at its Plenary Session, has been published at the Commission’s website on October 14, Armenia’s justice ministry told Armenpress.

In particular,

• The Commission, overall, assesses positively the legislative amendments contained in the Package. The proposed mechanisms increase the accountability of judges and are more efficient to prevent corruption, without, at the same time, disproportionately encroaching on the judges’ independence.
• The proposed reform underwent a process of public consultations; many amendments to the proposed texts were made following the input from the civil society organizations, the judicial community and other stakeholders. Many of the NGOs the delegation met in Yerevan noted with satisfaction the transparency and inclusiveness of the process of preparation of the Package.
• The Venice Commission understands that the proposed scheme of direct nominations to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption was needed to overcome future deadlocks. In sum, in the current political landscape of Armenia the new system of nominations seems to be acceptable.
• In terms of the required age for judges, the Commission said it cannot criticize this proposal in abstracto, since it does not have sufficient knowledge of the Armenian education system, the “demographics” of the Armenian judiciary etc. As to the Council of Europe standards regarding conditions for appointing judges, they do not mention certain age as a limit even though there are national systems with such provisions. When the Council of Europe standards are followed (i.e. judges are appointed without any discrimination, on the base of merit, having regard to qualifications, skills and capacity to fulfill judicial duties), the lower age of the candidate is within the discretion of the authorities.
• The Armenian authorities plan an exceptional early retirement scheme. They invoke the implementation of the Constitution as revised in 2015 in a post-revolutionary context and consider that the shift from the life-time tenure of constitutional justices (provided by the Constitution before the 2015 revision) to fixed-term mandate (provided by the current version of the Constitution) should be applied immediately.
• As to the early retirement scheme of judges appointed before the 2015 revision, the Venice Commission has previously criticized early retirement schemes when they were mandatory or when they affected a large number of judges. However, this criticism cannot be mounted where the resignation depends on a voluntary decision of the CC justices concerned. However, the potential simultaneous retirement of several and even as many as seven out of nine justices might hamper the effective functioning of the Court. The Venice Commission therefore recommends that the Armenian authorities revise the proposed scheme so that this concern is alleviated.

To sum up, the Commission said the Judicial Reform Package, developed by the Ministry of Justice of Armenia, generally deserves praise. In the process of preparation of the Package the Government of Armenia acted in a responsible and thoughtful manner and demonstrated openness to dialogue with all interlocutors, within and outside the country.